About half of all marriages in the United States end in divorce, and most of these divorces result in unnecessary collateral damage. Now there is a better way.

In Collaborative Divorce, Pauline Tesler and Peggy Thompson, two pioneers in the field who train collaborative professionals around the world, present the first complete, step-by-step explanation of the groundbreaking method that is revolutionizing the way couples end their marriages. Working with a team of caring specialists that includes two lawyers, two coaches, a financial consultant, and a child specialist (if necessary), you and your spouse focus on building a consensus that addresses the needs of everyone who will be directly affected by the divorce. This exciting new paradigm empowers you—not lawyers or a judge—to shape the outcome of your divorce, as you:

Stay out of court and save time

Create long-term financial and parenting plans that work

Play an active role in designing your life after the divorce

Understand and address your children's needs

Conserve emotional and financial resources

Collaborative Divorce is essential reading that will inspire you to approach divorce as a vehicle for conflict resolution, healing, and positive, long-term change.

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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Pauline H. Tesler, M.A., J.D., has been a specialist in family law certified by California State Bar Board of Legal Specialization since 1985. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. Tesler lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband.

Top customer reviews

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I am not contemplating divorce. Potentially as one of the members of the collaborative divorce team, I wanted to wrap my hand around this very human way to address an ultimately painful process. Collaborative divorce appears to be a humane approach to a very stressful process. I highly recommend the book to anyone who is interested in innovative legal procedures and/or contemplating divorce themselves. A friend who is faced with divorce may also benefit from reading it before he or she proceeds.

If you are facing a divorce, this is a good book to read. If it must happen, then try to make it as low on pain and suffering as possible. Everyone involved will appreciate it. Let the past remain in the past and look forward. I recommend that you look at other forms of divorce as well. Mediation is also an option. I believe any alternative to paying lots of money to lawyers is always better, unless you are rich and can afford to throw your money away.

This is a wonderfully easy to read introduction to collaborative law, particularly for non-lawyers who are investigating an alternative to the insanity of divorce litigation; lawyers will find it extremely useful as well. Please, please buy this book for yourselves, for your sake and the sake of your family and friends. Even if you don't become involved in a collaborative divorce, you will gain insights about mindfully shaping the family law experience that will serve you well!

Collaborative Divorce may well be a marketing ploy sold to states by attorneys. States say that it is a great concept with only anecdotal evidence. Maybe it's great if no children are involved. A fractured family is a fractured family whether together or apart. Kids are resilient,but they need support and love from grandparents and others who can let the adults exes duke it out, as if the children don't know what is going on. (That's my anecdotal experience as a grandfather watching an emotional mess develop and deteriorate before his very eyes.)

Divorce is a melancholy song of life. For some it sings a song of hope, but for most it is a dirge of fear, guilt, anger, depression and negative feelings. Wading through the emotional aspects of a divorce has been said to be even more overwhelming than those of the legal. Pauline H. Tesler, M.A, J.D. and Peggy Thompson, Ph.D. cannot bring back those magical feelings you once felt upon initially entering your marriage, but can and do help ease the pain and bring order into your life with hopes for a new beginning in their new book, collaborative divorce: The Revolutionary New Way to Restructure Your Family, Resolve Legal Issues, and Move on with Your Life.

More than a few of us remember the old televised series entitled "Divorce Court" where couples would hammer out their woes in front of Judge Voltaire Perkins. Mental cruelty, desertion, adultery, alcohol abuse and other heinous "crimes" in which people aired their dirty laundry were amusing to the audience, but in the real world were painful facts of life. Inevitably the Judge would announce the loser and smiles would go out to the winner. For many years it was a winner takes all situation, but in today's world, a world in which we find collaborative divorce, it is a win-win situation all around.

The collaborative divorce, while not meant to revitalize a weary or downright dead marriage, sets the scene in which a couple can exit a marriage with dignity and grace while addressing the most intimate concerns of the union. In a nut shell collaborative divorce uses a non-adversarial approach to sorting out the emotional, financial and legal issues encountered by a couple during the separation and divorce process, a process in which the couple works together with others to direct and redirect their own lives. An interdisciplinary team utilizes "coaches" for each individual spouse, a financial analyst and, most important, a child specialist for the children. Collaborative divorce meets the immediate needs of a couple or family while addressing and maintaining future relations long after the legal process has ended. Surprisingly enough, according to the authors the costs "will generally be much lower than if traditional adversarial lawyers had handled the case as a legal battle."

Initially I had many misgivings about the book as I tend to be somewhat leery of the terms "revolutionary" and "new" in the title of any newly issued book as it usually signifies "fad," but once I started to read the book I quickly "discovered" the extreme importance of the "revolutionary new" concept of collaborative divorce. Excellent, excellent ... I can't say enough about the importance of this extremely well written book. It should be of especial interest to those in long term marriages, those with entangled financial assets and most importantly for couples with children. I'd recommend purchasing not one, but two of these books, one for you, one for your spouse. Maintaining dignity and grace are priceless.

I gave up reading this book because the focus was too narrow and the writing too long winded. I skimmed everything and concluded that reading all of it would be a waste of my time. The book focused mainly on using different types of professionals to handle the divorce: coach/psychologists, child specialists, financial advisors, and collaborative lawyers.

One thing I was hoping to get from the book was a thorough, organized inventory of issues that need to be considered during a divorce (issues involving child custody, dividing finances fairly, etc.) The book mentions many issues, but not in an orgnized manner. They are scattered throughout the book. The book basically advises, "leave everything to the professionals, and this is how they'll handle it for you." There are examples in the book of how people handled things well, but in general I found the tone of the book slightly condescending.

I kept thinking as I was reading this book, "Why am I reading this? I might as well talk to one of these professionals myself instead of reading about talking to the professionals." In my opinion, this book could have easily made its point in 100 pages or less.